Paul Bunyan (Short 1958) ⭐ 6.9 | Animation, Short, Adventure

Paul Bunyan was one of those animations that I saw a lot as a child, and was fascinated and highly amused by it. As a 20-year old adult, I still do have a soft spot for it, but I think I liked it more as a child. Mainly because when I was younger I paid little attention to the animation quality, but when you're older it's not really something that you can ignore really. And I hate to say it, but I do agree that the animation is not that great, despite Paul Bunyan being unique for being the last Disney short film to be inked by hand apparently. The character designs came across as rather blocky, except for Paul himself, and the backgrounds are very limited and flat. There is one touch that I did like and that was the Nothern Lights at the end, very nicely done. Aside from the animation, which I do think is too big a foible to excuse, I loved the music. The title song is very catchy with great lyrics, and the rest of the songs are humorous and the scoring whimsical. The singing of it is great as well, I still marvel at how the vocal ensembles manage to blend with each other so well and Paul Bunyan is no exception, while Thurl Ravenscroft has that same resonant basso-profundo voice. The story and writing have some funny moments, are faithful to the original tale and are very clever. The characters are memorable, especially Paul who is also very endearing and easy to like, and the voice work is great. Overall, I didn't care for the animation, but I thought the rest of Paul Bunyan was highly enjoyable. 8/10 Bethany Cox

• TheLittleSongbird
• Nov 9, 2012
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